Tyrants are not
all-unconscious of the nefariousness of their tyranny. Till in the progress of
their iniquity they have seared their consciences as with a hot iron and
paralyzed their human sensibilities, they are obliged to encounter the stern
remonstrances and pathetic pleadings of their own souls. They are compelled to
drug the amiabilities of their nature with potent opiates, and to summon to
their aid all their meaner passions, infuriated perhaps by frequent resort to
the intoxicating cup. The rage, which explodes upon their opponents, is often
the result of the chafing of the remorseful agitations of their own minds ad
the artificial infuriation of alcohol. Hence the savage ferocity which broke
upon Senator Sumner, and the grim satisfaction of the moral accomplices of the
assassin. The excess of fury, which sometimes manifests itself in the
concoction, and execution of the worst edicts, is the desperate effort of the
guilty tyrants to ease the torments of their own hearts. Seldom in the pursuit
and punishment of real criminals is such terrible zeal exhibited as in hounding
down and tearing to pieces the virtuous men and even women who dare to oppose
themselves to oppression.

We know that murderers,
before they proceed to their bloody work, often have to drink deep of the
maddening bowl, and criminals of every grade keep their senses in a state of
unnatural excitement or stupefaction. The object seems to be not so much to
lull the fear of punishment as to stifle the voice of conscience. It is so,
too, (is the persuasion unreasonable?) with those in our legislative halls, and
elsewhere, who “turn judgment into hemlock.” Not a little of the heard
drinking in Congress and in our State Legislatures is traceable to the
endeavors found necessary to “screw the courage up to the sticking point.”
Thus Fugitive Slave Bills are manufactured and passed, and then for a while
they are executed with an insane ferocity, and from President down to Deputy
Marshal, an impetuous zeal is displayed to drag a fugitive slave back to
bondage and to “crush out” the sympathy felt for him far greater than appears
in the administration of all righteous law. The misery that tears the
heart-strings of the guilty men who frame and execute wicked laws words fail to
tell; and they need deeper sympathy than their innocent victims.

Some
of the original tyrants do not come into immediate contact with their victims,
and they thus escape some of the most serious embarrassments of oppression.
When a fugitive stands before a Loring, all the unextinguished feelings of his
soul must mutiny against the task of sending him back to the prison-house.
What is there in that nefarious miscalled law, which can appear to him otherwise
than abominable? To be the minister of the most monstrous institution that
disgraces a selfish would! How can it be otherwise than that he should feel
degraded in his own eyes, and stand rebuked and deeply abashed before all of
conscience and heart and soul left within him. One might well conclude that
the Christian heart of Anthony Burns swelled with pity as he looked upon the
man at whose horrible tribunal he stood to receive his doom.

What
must be the embarrassments of courts before which men stand arraigned whose
only crime is that they hate slavery and love the liberty for which the heroic
fathers of the Republic bled and died – that not for themselves alone do
they cherish these sentiments, but for every human being! Can a court, not
lost to every noble and virtuous sentiment, sit to judge such men as criminals
without an agitating embarrassment? It is honorable to a court to feel the
embarrassment deeply, and it would be more honorable still to declare that
enactments that necessarily array the sentiments of such men against them ought
not to be by the courts of justice regarded as laws. When so called law is such that the sympathy of the virtuous
must be with the accused, and not the law or its ministers, the courts must be
degraded and debased in their own eyes, and cannot without conscious guilt
consent to be the ministers of such perversion. The disastrous tendency of
such enactments and their execution is to bring all law and government into
contempt. When a court sits to administer such enactments, it must feel small
in the presence of the arraigned in proportion to its appreciation of
righteousness. All the dignity it assumes must be artificial – it must
have the most uncomfortable and confounding conviction that its sentence, which
punishes the virtuous, condemns itself. When Luther stood before the Diet of
Worms and refused to retract his doctrines unless confuted by Scripture, he
must have thrown the magnates of the empire into the most perplexing
embarrassment. It was very plain that he was a good, conscientious man. To
punish such a man they felt would be monstrous. To do it they would have to
work themselves into an artificial rage – for how can ordinary, unexcited
human nature inflict pains and penalties on innocence or virtue?

Let
good men, wrongfully accursed of crime, hold fast the spirit of Christianity,
and they cannot fail to heap coals of fire on the heads of their adversaries.
The officials of oppression will feel the manacles more than the victims whose
wrists they gall. The very felons in jail will bear witness for them, and
their oppressors will be ashamed. The modest confidence of virtue will erect
their forms and irradiate their countenances, as looking up with serene
assurance to God’s throne, they know that, though human tribunals may condemn
them, the record on high sustains their cause. A flaming transcript of that
record, forever troubles the mental vision of all unrighteousness rulers, and
makes their loins shake. But that the triumph of righteousness may be complete
in the conscience of every ferocious Caiaphas and weak Pilate, all who suffer
for righteousness’ sake must reflect the calm, meek dignity of Him who in the
endurance of persecution from vengeful, enraged iniquity and from recreant
weakness, as well as in all things else, is our Divine Exemplar. It is only
when arraigned wisdom and virtue are free from all associations with folly and
wrong that they alone appear accused. Otherwise their unseemly associates
appear at least to share in the punishment, and the consciences of the
oppressor and his abettor are relieved and virtue suffers loss. But let Right
stand up in her sole majesty to be judged by Wrong, eve when Wrong seems to
triumph, the apparent victory is defeat – the real triumph is the Right,
mocked, scourged, and crucified between two thieves. n.n.